Parents of teenager allegedly gang raped and murdered in the India demand justice for their daughter

The parents of a 16-year-old girl who was allegedly gang raped twice and murdered in the Indian city of Kolkata have spoken to ITV News about their anguish and hopes for justice.

It is claimed the girl was first raped in October by a gang of six men after being lured from her home in the Madhyamgram suburb of the city.

Her parents later found her in a nearby field and took her to the police station the next day to report the crime. But her father, a taxi driver, says police failed to act on the complaint .

Later that day, the gang are said to have abducted and raped the teenager for a second time as punishment for going to the police.

Her father said:

While I was returning from the police station on a bicycle rickshaw after they refused to act on my complaint of the gang rape of my daughter, the same gang kidnapped my daughter from the rickshaw and took her away to an isolated spot and raped her in turns, a second time.

– The teenager's father

The teenage girl was allegedly kidnapped in her local neighbourhood and brutally raped.

On December 23, after two months of being threatened with violence if she did not withdraw her police complaint, his daughter was set on fire, her father said.

Describing the events leading up to the incident, he said: "They [two of the alleged attackers] had a heated argument with my daughter and made lewd passes at her.

"My wife went out shopping for vegetables and when she came back she saw my daughter in flames and started shouting for help.

"One of my neighbours came and helped me extinguish the fire on my daughter’s body and we took her to hospital."

The girl later died from her injuries in hospital on New Year's Eve and her family have called for those responsible for her death to face the death penalty.

"All I need is justice and nothing else. I want the perpetrators of this heinous crime to be hanged till death and I will not stop my fight until this happens", her father said.

He also alleges that police demanded that he hand over his daughter's death certificate in the middle of the night so they could cremate her before daybreak.

The teenager's inconsolable mother said: "My daughter was very lovely girl and she would really look after me well. In the morning she would be ready with a cup of tea for me everyday.

"She was the pillar of our family and I don’t how we will cope with life now", she added.

Despite criticism of the police's handling of the case, the state's urban development minister has defended their response, pointing to the arrests of six men suspected of rape and another two for allegedly setting the girl on fire.

"The state government has taken appropriate action in this case," the Associated Press quoted Firhad Hakim as saying.

The girl's father is demanding that federal investigators take charge of the case. He has filed a petition before Calcutta's High Court calling for an investigation by the CBI - the Indian equivalent of America's FBI.

The family is also expected to meet with Indian president Pranab Kumar Mukherjee tomorrow to demand justice for their daughter.

In September, demonstrators celebrated the sentencing of four men for the rape and murder of an Indian student in December 2012. Credit: Reuters

The case has sent shockwaves through the country just over a year after the death of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student who was brutally gang raped on a Delhi bus in December 2012.

She died of her injuries a few weeks later. Last September, four of the six men accused of the crime were sentenced to death.

A fifth defendant hanged himself in his cell during the course of the trial, while a sixth received a three-year prison sentence - the maximum possible for juvenile offenders.